


The Sides of a Coin or In the Moments After

by Tandirra



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loki Angst, Loki Has Issues, Manpain, Near Death Experiences, Not Happy, Not Really Character Death, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Thor (Marvel), Post-Thor (2011), Suicidal Thoughts, Thor Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 16:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12016572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tandirra/pseuds/Tandirra
Summary: Loki fell and Thor was saved. How does one fall? How does one die?Loki died and Thor was left alone. How does one move on? How does one live after that?





	The Sides of a Coin or In the Moments After

__ He had heard Thor’s scream, the horror of it that tore at Loki’s fractured mind, how could he have not?  _ But he only cried out because he didn’t know, _ a bitter voice wove through Loki’s thoughts. Had Thor known he would have struck the killing blow; had he known he would have gotten over his sudden change of heart and destroyed Loki like he was supposed to have done. Because he was Thor, the hero and champion who destroyed monsters. And the Jotnar were monsters.

_ Why could only he see that suddenly? Why hadn’t Thor-- Why hadn’t father-- _

(I could have done it, father! For you! For us, for all of us!)

_ Had he really said…  _ The Void’s cold seeped into his very bones and stole away his thoughts for a moment. He tried to move his fingers, the fingers that had let go, and found them stiff with icy nothingness. The world was dark and empty.

_ Or were his eyes closed? _ With monumental effort, Loki snapped his eyelids open to see naught but swirling colors amongst black oblivion. An oblivion that he floated amongst, alone, suspended, as his lungs struggled and ached in his bruised chest.  _ It was beautiful, _ he managed a smile that didn't feel wholly hollow, truly gorgeous, like nothing he’d ever seen. This sight would be his last. As deaths go, it could be worse.

Though the monsters of storybooks rarely got such glorious a sight.

The cold frosted his eyes as his body shut down and his senses frayed. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. The very atoms of his body were being stretched apart by the Void’s tug.

(No, Loki.)

_ But why? Why had father said that? _ After all he’d done. After he defeated Laufey, the monster, the villain, and nothing more,  _ nothing more _ . Why could father not see that Jotunheim deserved to be destroyed? That the land of monsters,  _ monsters and only monsters _ , that he’d been forever told was a deadly thorn in Asgard’s great side, could finally be vanquished at his hand. And Loki could show himself worthy to be Asgardian. Worthy to be an Odinson. Worthy of  _ something _ .

Why hadn’t father let him prove that?

Was he truly nothing more than a monster? Was his only birthright a cold death?

Why hadn't father caught him?

Loki’s heart skipped a long beat as his lungs sucked in nothingness and his body spasmed in a panic. His very essence throbbed as his body began to die. The abyss of stars blurred as his eyes fogged over.

_ Dying hurts, _ Loki thought bluntly and laughed at the surprise of his realization, though there was no air left in his screaming lungs to make a sound. It felt as if he'd tear it two, his lungs bursting and shredding his poorly beating heart. The muscles of his face twisted his smile into a grimace. The feeling that had lingered in his fingers faded into uncomfortable prickling of dying nerves.  _ This hurts, this hurts _ . His heart skipped another beat, another two. Vision fading to naught but splotches, Loki writhed. He was being torn apart from the inside.  _ No, no, no, this hurt, this hurtthishurt thishurt ohnornswhydidithurtsomuch whywhywhyThorplease Thor-- _

Why couldn’t Thor have just killed him? Loki knew how to anger him, why hadn’t it worked? It should have worked.  _ That  _ death would have been swift. Painless for all but the briefest moments.

(I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all.)

Thor should have slain him. That’s how it goes in the stories Loki knew so well. Thor was the hero;  _ he  _ was merely the monster that wormed its way into the hero’s heart. Had Thor struck him down and the Bifrost done its job to Jotunheim, then the monsters could have been defeated, all of them. Every last despicable one.

Loki’s stubborn heart thumped an irregular beat as his withered lungs tried to repair themselves. His eyes cleared for a moment as his body reconstructed itself in a fruitless effort to stave off death and in doing so, damning itself further. Even while his lungs threaded themselves together Loki could feel his seidr draining, pulling on the meager energies left within him.

With a soundless, angry hiccup, Loki realized this would be a long death as his body fought against the inevitable. It would succumb, of course, that was his only solace. But until then, Loki’s body burned on loop within the empty coldness of the Void. There was naught he could do but wait.

He hoped Thor wouldn’t learn the truth. _Perhaps father and mother wouldn’t tell him,_ he thought to himself. Thor didn’t deserve to know what terrible creature he’d once let climb into his bed on nights when nightmares ruled. Thor could keep him separate from the monster--

_ Thor had near died at his hand. _

Another soundless laugh escaped him, sharp with fraying fury.

The thought sounded like a grand farce. But even his failing brain, patchy memories fluttering just out of reach like dying moths, could toss its evidence at him. He’d struck Thor down with only a moment’s hesitation. The sight of Thor’s still body pushed its way into his shoddy vision.

_ His older brother, collapsing to the ground, falling, falling, falling. _

Why had he done that? It hadn’t been what he wanted. He'd never wished Thor dead.

Loki’s body again started to fail and beg for release that wouldn't yet come but quickly approached. His fingers clawed at icy emptiness. His traitorous hand, the one that had shown him the truth under his skin, that had proven him unworthy of Mjolnir, that had struck Thor down, that had  _ let go _ , whisked through empty space and disappeared out of view. It would stay there, he wanted no more of it. His vision went black, or perhaps he’d closed his eyes again. If he could only feel his face, he’d know. Every weak, irregular beat of his heart throbbed like a hot iron pressed against every inch of his body. The cold was inescapable even as he burned into ashes.

He wondered if Jotnar could freeze.

Or if his heart would stop before that came to pass.

Everything hurt.

Why couldn’t Thor have simply killed him?

Why hadn’t father seen the truth?

Why hadn't father caught him?

Why did dying have to  _ hurt so much _ .

Loki felt the world around him shudder and forced his eyes open and gasped in inaudible shock at what he saw. 

Mother’s garden stretched out before him, he could smell honeysuckle in the air, hear the chirping of insects among the roses. The sky shone warm overhead, perfectly blue. His skin felt pleasantly thawed by it. But the cool breeze that tickled his nose kept him from anything but the perfection of the day. The world, in this single static moment, was right. Mother was surely just around the corner waiting for him. She would share a lunch with him while he presented to her a new theory or spell. She would smile and everything would be as it should.

Realizing he had no new spell to show her, Loki’s heart thumped. He couldn’t disappoint.

He stretched his hand forward, the same one that had let go, grasping for a delicate pink rose. But his limbs refused to move. His chest felt oddly cold inside, despite the sun that warmed his skin. When he attempted to suck in a breath to remedy the feeling, he choked on nothingness.

Pain bloomed in his throat as he realized he wasn’t touching the ground.

He blinked and his perfect moment faded, its colors bleaching and mixing into ugly browns and finally the expanse of absolute dark nothingness.

The very blood that pumped within seemed to frost in his veins as icy needling spread throughout him. Tears pricked his eyes and froze instantly. Even if he could see, there was likely nothing to be observed. His lungs gave up their fight with a last fruitless, agonizing effort.

He saw his father’s face, cold, detached, masklike while he dangled over the precipice.

(No, Loki.)

_ But why? _

With a final, weak flutter, his heart stopped. Every memory he had began to fade as his brain cried out its deathknell.

_ I’m sorry. I’msorryimsorryimsor-- _

  
  
  


 

Loki gasped, his lungs screaming for newly found life. The drag of cold air against his ravaged throat was crueller than any blade. His very teeth throbbed in his mouth as if someone had attempted to pull them from his skull. His eyes flew open, searching without function or purpose. His face was wet with tears he didn’t remember shedding but that were not frozen.

There was stone above him, floating in a blue tinged void. Cold rock was unyielding against his bruised back. Loki’s traitorous hands scrambled against the stone for something to grasp as his heart thumped in a panic, the loudest sound he’d ever heard. There were strange feet by his side, mostly covered by heavy, navy robes.

It took him only moments to realize he was not dead.

And seconds more to wish otherwise.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Healers moved silently around Thor, assessing the damage Gungnir had done to him. Their seidr seeped into his muscles, relieving him of his aches. They fretted over minutiae, toiling over every bruise as if it was a rending gash ready to bleed him dry. As if healing the bruises would make him feel whole again; as if he could ever be so.

Thor stared at Mjolnir in his hands, running his fingers over its edges, coveting his worthiness of its might. It hummed in his hand, a steady thrum that would have made the world right again. Only yesterday, he would have given anything to hold its power again, there was no price too great.

_ What a fool he was, a childish, selfish fool _ , he realized, sucking in a breath and shutting his eyes tight to the overly bright world.

The price he paid was too high.

(I could have done it, father!)

Never that, anything but that.

It mattered not how the healers toiled, his whole body ached. His chest was hollow like he'd never felt before.

_ Of course it was, _ he chided himself silently,  _ his heart had been rent from it. _

Was this what the stories meant when they spoke of suffering too terrible to name? Was this what the hero’s family felt when he was lost to the realms, unable to even find solace in Valhalla? Had he really mocked such sentiment as silly and dramatized?

Gritting his teeth, Thor stood and balled his fists to his eyes. He heard the healers around him skitter back.

One of them spoke. “Prince Thor,” her voice was tentative and impossibly soft. “We… we have healed most of your visible wounds. Are there any others you can feel that we could aid you with?”

“No,” he croaked a lie. In truth, his ears rung a high note that seemed never to fade, the sound of the shattering Bifrost, a terrible rupture so monumental that the realms would never be the same.

It paled beneath his loss.

“May I leave?” He forced himself to open his eyes and gazed at the healers, too tired to force his hand. They nodded and stepped aside. He saw their uncertainty and paid it no mind. Nothing was sure or certain anymore; he wondered if it ever would be again.

Thor’s legs carried him through a palace that no longer felt his home.

He ached for Midgard, for Jane, to hold her until he could think of nothing else. To smell her hair and drink coffee and laugh and tell her tales of his youth and listen to her own stories.

(If you destroy the Bifrost you’ll never see her again!)

Lo--

He struggled to grasp the name in his thoughts and sucked in a shallow breath that hardly filled his hollow chest.

Loki had been right. Midgard was severed from him by his own hand. There was no salvation to be found there.

And Loki--

Thor’s mind skirted around the thought, telling him it wasn’t true. It  _ couldn’t  _ be true. Loki wasn’t--

This was some awful trick, all of it.

Mother’s relief at his safety only to melt into a soul shattering anguish that had escaped her in a muffled sob which wracked the very fabric of the realm itself, just a figment of his imagination. Her hands had not clawed at him, desperation and sorrow too great to fathom, he’d made up that awful moment. Father’s silence, the age that seeped from his very being, a farce. And Loki--

He took off in a dead sprint, losing himself in the pumping of his arms and the pounding of his legs against smooth metal.

None of this was right.

It couldn’t be.

Thor ran, Mjolnir thrummed in his hand. He paid no heed to the Einherjar he scattered or the maid he narrowly avoided, her squeak of surprise was lost to his own thumping heart. 

There had been some mistake. Loki couldn’t be--

And he could prove it.

The corridors of the palace were infinitely familiar but he felt like an intruder. The walls bared down upon him, sucking all air from the world. He’d thought the odd air of Midgard was hard to manage. This air was worse, though it was the same he had breathed for a thousand years without issue. All that had changed was--

He skidded to a halt in front of Loki’s chambers and hesitated. He’d touch the doors and feel Loki’s spells burn him, as they’d done many a time. All he had to do was reach out.

With one hand he gripped Mjolnir tighter than a drowning man to his sole lifeline. The other hand hovered a hair’s breadth from Loki’s door.

If he could merely reach forward, he’d know Loki to be a dirty liar. He’d know that Loki wasn’t--

Thor’s whole body burned. The hollow cavity of his chest ached immeasurably. Every second seemed to last an eternity in front of this door.

_ Just reach out, _ his mind urged him.

And so he did. His fingers brushed against the gold and he braced for a stinging burn and a hissing string of profanities. For the relief of its presence.

All was silent. The door was cold, unyielding, unfeeling.

Thor’s hand slid off it like water to hang limply by his side.

He dropped Mjolnir, not caring how it thudded to the burnished metal. Moments later, he crumpled to the floor beside it as the very Nine Realms crashed around him.

Pressing both hands flat against the cruel door, Thor searched for any hint of the spell he knew Loki had imbued them with.

_ Not Loki. That couldn’t have been Loki. Why would Loki have done this? No, it was some imposter. _

But the door was silent and in its stillness, held the undeniable truth.

Thor drew his legs underneath him and struggled to gasp. The air itself was wrong. It felt as if he attempted to breathe soup, so thick he’d choke on it and drown. Asgard shouldn’t exist without his brother, it was protesting the absence by denying him relief. Or perhaps it was his own lungs that struggled to fill in a hollow chest with too many missing pieces.

It was Loki who lied to him and told him their father was dead.  _ Why _ ? It was Loki who had sent the Destroyer after him.  _ Why? _ It was Loki who had tried to destroy Jotunheim.  _ Why? _ It was Loki who had fought him without any wit, all brutality and reckless fury.  _ Why? _ It was Loki who had hurt him.  _ How could he? _ It was Loki who held onto the end of Gungnir, dangling over the Void.  _ How could he?  _ It was Loki who’d sobbed with unshakable desperation. _ Why had he? _

(I could have done it, father! For you, for us, for all of us!)

It was Loki who had--

Thor pounded against the door. _ How could he have let this happen?  _ Loki had been right there. If he’d just reached farther, or said something differently, then Loki would be here with him.  _ He should have been able to help.  _

His brother, his dark, younger brother whom he loved. His odd brother who locked himself away in his room for days on end, working on some project or trick. His baby brother, who he’d let share his bed in younger days when nightmares plagued him. His strange, clever brother who was mischief and laughter incarnate. His quick fingered brother who he’d taught how to properly hold a shield when the weapon master failed. His annoying younger brother who had beat him on the training fields using skills he’d never seen, who he’d mocked aloud for cheating, in his cruel, childish indignation.

His only brother, who lived and breathed but hours ago. His younger brother, his--

Loki had _ let go.  _ Let go and slipped into the Void with a hopelessness that rang deeper than all else and cracked in his voice.

(I could have done it, father!)

Thor’s hands tore at his cape, twisting and fraying the thick red fabric as the world reeled.

Dead. Loki was dead.

His brother, his awful, irksome, meddlesome, exhausting, dramatic, selfish, selectively idiotic, younger brother was dead.

(Loki, no!)

Dead because he wished to be. Because he gave up.

Because he thought it a better option than living with those who loved him.

Thor’s chest would never be whole again. Neither fury nor sorrow could fill it.

_ How? Why?  _ Thor desperately wished to understand. But he was drowning in his own ignorance. He’d let Loki slip to this and never even noticed.  _ He failed his brother and hadn’t seen so until it was too late. Until Loki was ready to give up. _

He stared at the patterns of the floor outside Loki’s room, felt the scuffs that worked a thin groove into the metal, evidence of a thousand years of restless occupancy. Evidence of boots that would never again walk these halls.

_ The Bifrost, Jane, Midgard, Loki. _

How could he survive this much loss? How could anyone?

Surely his empty, pounding heart would rip him asunder.

Thor leaned against the mercilessly still doors but dared not open them. He leaned back and shut his eyes tight.

His ears rang with the Bifrost’s final cry and the echo of a scream.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this it's just sad. I might end up writing something similar for that good good fake death in Thor 2 too. If you want that, leave a comment.


End file.
